Christmas Party at the Teacher's House

On Friday we had a Christmas party at my house.  We started off with a pizza lunch, then rolled and cut out some sugar cookies. While they baked and cooled, we watched a Christmas movie, played some games, and opened presents. After we decorated our cookies, we took a brisk walk to play at a nearby park. It was a fun and busy afternoon!!

Our "Stained Glass" Nativities

Christmas Tree Brownies

On Friday, we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and then we got to decorate our very own "Charlie Brown Christmas Trees"!

We started with triangle brownies:

 

Added candy cane "trunks" and green icing:

And then finished them off with some sprinkles!

Making Handprint Christmas Wreaths

Christmas Decorating

This week we have been working on getting the classroom decorated for Christmas! My kiddos enjoyed making and coloring ornaments for the Christmas trees we were putting around the room. They make the walls of the classroom look so festive!

Our Thankful Tree

In the beginning of November, our Thankful Tree started off like this...

After a month of writing down things we are thankful for, these little Pilgrims completed the tree today!

{We are thankful for: food, the world, God, Jesus, the sun and moon, Mom, Dad, Grandma, the Bible, my toy dinosaur, video games, my home, clothes, our class, Miss Follett, my neighbor, baby animal book, my sister Hope, my brother Marc, my brothers Matthew & James, chicken fingers, the computer, my remote control race track, Jasper, my toy unicorn, chicken and fries, cotton candy, my race car game, my puppy Maggy, my yard, my family}

Months of the Year

What do you do while working on your Social Studies paper? Sing the Months of the Year song of course!

Roadside America & McDonalds

Yesterday we went on a field trip to Roadside America. As you can see from the sign below, it is considered the world's greatest indoor miniature village. :-) They just recently celebrated their 80th anniversary, so it has been around for awhile! The kids loved going around the room, pressing buttons to make different things move. Josh's sister and another new friend joined us for the day to make it even more fun!

 

It is always a tradition to get a picture in front of "Ma and Pa" before we leave!

We finished up our day with lunch at McDonald's. The kids had a blast in the playroom once they finished their happy meals. :-)

The Franklin Institute

We went to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia yesterday. What a fun and busy day! We got to be part of both a Liquid Air show and the Science of Combustion show, and then we got to explore all over the museum.

Here are some bits and pieces of our day! We were moving around so fast that I didn't take quite as many pictures as I usually do! A few of these are borrowed from another teacher. :-)

 

Exploring the Air Force plane

I try to encourage working together as a team! Here they are trying to pump up a balloon as much as they can before the timer runs out. (They still have some work to do :-))

They are turning a train wheel and then hitting the brakes to see how quickly it makes the wheel stop!

 

One of the first things we did was walk through the Giant Heart - twice! This display has been around for a long time (I walked through it when I was in elementary school!) and is always the thing that kids remember the most about the Franklin Institute!

 

One of the newest areas is the Sports Zone room. The boys loved racing against the Philly Phanatic and trying out some surfing techniques - among other things! 

Faith and I were buddies all day :-)

 

Group picture to conclude our fun field trip!

Fun in the Leaves!

We had some fun in the leaves outside on Wednesday. It was an unusually warm day for November, so we had to take advantage of it!!!

Making Applesauce

Quick poses before starting :-)

Cutting up the apples!

Say "APPLE!!!"

Using a Victorious strainer to make our applesauce!

All done and ready to be served!

The elementary students were quite thrilled to help us eat all the applesauce!

Week 9 in Pictures

Last week we did some fun activities! On Monday, we made animal puppets with Miss Briar. On Wednesday we did some Apple prints. We took apple halves, dipped them in some paint and pressed them over and over again on paper. What a fun and messy activity! On Friday, the Elementary joined us as we made some "acorn people". We had a lot of acorns to decorate!!!

 

Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum

On Thursday we went to Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum for their Hands-on History day. We got to walk around and explore an 18th and 19th century village filled with all kinds of preserved items from that time period of Pennsylvania German culture.

We got to work with sheep's wool and learn about the process of turning it into yarn.

We had to use these special "combs" to get all the knots out of the wool.

We got to go on a wagon ride through the village!

A group picture in front of the general store before we got to go explore inside.

Enjoying the beautiful weather during our lunch break!

Although there are many parts of this time period that fascinates this teacher, I am so thankful for certain modern conveniences! Thankfully, this outhouse was not the actual facility we had to use! :-)